1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to syndicated personalized start page(s) or content document(s) of a user group.
2. Related Art
A content document, such as a start page, can include a browser-based home page that can be accessed at an organization's domain (e.g., Web page) by a user using a workstation connected to a network such as the Internet, for example. A content document can be maintained by the content document provider or a group who has syndicated use of a content document, for example, and the content document can be customizable for a particular user or user group. For instance, groups, such as companies, universities, clubs, and organizations, can provide one or more content documents for their employees, customers, students, and/or members that focus on that group's particular interests. As an example, a company that sells computer equipment, such as personal or laptop computers, can integrate a default content document on their domain that appears upon connection to the Internet and that provides helpful tools, services, discussion boards, etc., that relate to a customer's purchased computer and/or interests.
Companies, such as Google Inc., frequently partner with such organizations and provide an appropriate syndicated default content document for a particular organization. The default content document may allow for some further customization at a group level (e.g., by an authorized representative of the group, such as an administrator), and may even allow some customization at a user level (e.g., adding modules or gadgets to the content document from a gadget directory). Some of this group-level or user-level customization can be conducted solely by the administrator or the user, without having to contact the content document provider. However, some items or tools that appear on a content document, or that are made available to appear on a content document, may only be customizable by contacting the content document provider.
Controlling the configuration of gadgets or modules (software tools or programs that are usually Uniform Resource Locater (URL)-based or Web-based) that can appear on, or that can be made available in, a content document is a task that is typically done through a group's (more specifically, a group's authorized administrator's) contact with the content document provider. An entire universe of modules, developed and submitted by both organizations and individuals, exists (and is growing), and these modules are, for the most part, available to anyone with access to the Internet. However, only a small number of modules are typically made available on default content documents. A user of a content document is then limited to this small number of available modules. In order for a group to customize (e.g., add to, delete from) the list of available modules, an administrator of the group may have to contact the content document provider (e.g., Google Inc.), and the content document provider would then make the updates in one or more files, for example, associated with that group's content document. This change would not be instantaneous and could take days to take effect.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method that overcomes the above-described limitation(s).